Trying to finish up the meeting house!

Well, this should be the last of the "meeting house project." Elder Booth was able to help put up the roof:

Next were the walls and it looks like everyone helped with that (after posing for the picture, of course):



Now it looks like a game of basketball is in order...

Subject: Hey Again
Date: May 17, 2009

Hey everybody! I enjoyed talking with everybody on the phone. It was nice. Too bad I won't be able to do that again for a while. Time is going by fast, though. Christmas seems like yesterday when I think about it. Before you know it, I will be able to call whenever I want again. Or at least you can call me since I was never very good at that. Well, even here I'm not very good. Sorry about that. We are just lucky that Chad had that card. I talked to one missionary and he said 100P with this one company was 30 minutes. So I went and bought those kind. Then I tried to use them and found out the owner of our apartment used a different company. I guess that matters here. I had no idea. She had some cards, but I guess with the other company 100P is only like five minutes. Oh well - live and learn I guess.

Well, like I said on the phone, everything is going pretty well here. We have a baptism planned for this Saturday, so you will know if that works out in a couple of months since I really don't know when you will actually get the letter I now have to write. I don't know if they will be as long, either. The whole letter writing thing kind of takes forever. So I will do my best to shop really fast and get home so I can start writing. Everything should be good with the baptism, though. They are really good kids that have the desire. The work is really good here, though. We actually should have some baptisms for the next three weeks. All they really have to do is keep coming to church and they are set. That is still the biggest problem here in the Philippines. There are a crazy amount of inactive people. It really does not take much for them to stop coming. They get offended easily.

Sunday morning did kind of stink, though. We went to try and pick up some kids that we were hoping to baptize the first week of June, and ended up getting into an argument with their grandmother. She is pretty set in her ways and really does not want her grandchildren to get baptized. So that really was not the best start of the day. To make up for it though, when we finally arrived at church I was taken aback when I saw one of our investigators there that we have been teaching for about four months. He just decided to get over being shy and go to church. I really could not stop smiling when I saw that guy. I really hope he keeps coming. He is great. That is about it when it comes to our investigators.

I do have one funny story for you. I don't know if you remember, but a long time ago I told you all about this time we crashed a funeral. Well, I ended up talking to one of the girls who was actually at the funeral. She was very nice and invited us back. So of course we set up a time and went back a couple of days later. When we got there I made the mistake of mentioning the old guy that we talked to last time. She said: "Oh my grandpa is the guy that debated with you last time. Just wait here and I will go and get him for you." So we spent the next thirty minutes having to listen to this old guy yell at us about his "true church". My companion was getting kind of fired up. I was just having a hard time not laughing in his face. I don't know, there is just something about a really old man yelling in my face that is funny. Especially when he spends the little energy he has to stand and do it. Well, he actually started to warm up to us a little bit and decided we should all sing. So he asked us if our church had music. Of course we said yes. He then proceeded to get his guitar. Then after he got his guitar he told us to start to sing. We sang "I am a child of God" while he tried to make up music on the spot. Yea. That was just funny. He was dissapointed when we cut it short wtih just one verse. To be honest so was I. It was funny to watch him try and follow along. He did better than I would have, at least. I don't know if we will ever go back there again. Well you never know. I said we would never go back after the first time.

That is about all I have for funny stories. I hope all of you continue to do well. Keep up your faith and stay strong in the church. I love you all and can't wait to get all of your letters in about a month. Thanks for the support and love you all have shown me.

Elder Booth

Spending time with the neighbors...

These pictures come from another Family Home Evening. This time, it was with a family that lives below them and actually own the apartment. They are the Flours. (While Elder Booth did put the name of the family in his letter, I'm not quite sure, because of his handwriting, if I'm getting it right. If not, then I guess he can correct it later...) Here's what Elder Booth had to say about them: "They are awesome. They always give us food." Anytime someone is giving a missionary food, I'm sure they are "awesome."

It looks like this FHE included the other companionship that lives with Elder Booth and Elder Martanito. They are Elder Hopper and Elder Estava (I think). Here are some pictures of them with the family:





It's so nice to know that there are families over in the Philippines taking care of Elder Booth! I hope they know how much we, as his family, appreciate it!

Another Family Home Evening...

In May, Elder Booth had the opportunity to visti with a less active family in his area. Unfortunately, he didn't leave a name for them. It looks like the family definitely knows how to take care of the missionaries, though!

Here are some pictures of Elder Booth and his companion, Elder Martanito, with the family:

This is a picture of just Elder Martanito with the family:

It looks like the missionaries are well taken care

of as far as having lots of good food around!

Here they are getting the food ready to eat:

This last shot is one of Elder Martanito, Elder Booth's companion,
with one of the kids from the family. What a cute kid!

Here is another email update from Elder Booth:


Subject: Happy Mothers Day
Date: May 10, 2009 8:39:18 PM PDT

Hey how is everybody? I'll start off by saying sorry for not calling today. It's Mother's Day and it probably would have been best to call on the exact day, but yea, it just did not happen. You would think the mission would make me better at planning things out. It's alright. I will just call next week instead. I am already excited to talk to you all.

Things here are still going pretty well. They are just moving on like they usually do. Me and my new companion are getting along great and he is catching up to me fast when it comes to the area, which is really nice. The investigators and members seem to like him just fine so there aren't any problems there. I have been pretty lucky when it comes to companions. The apartment is still a little different, but I am getting used to it. I guess life is all about change, though. The other two elders turned out to be pretty nice. Even if they weren't, dad told me to stop crabbing and gossiping. Sorry. I will try not to do that again. You can't be to hard on me though. When you grow up in Moapa Valley, gossiping is in your blood. I guess it is a hard habit to break.

The area right now is actually doing really well. We have seven investigators right now with baptismal dates and right now they all look like they will go through as long as we do our part and keep going by the spirit. Two are actually the cousins of the two girls that I baptized a while ago. They are always there for the lessons and are great fellow shippers. They bring them to church every week and are helping with the small shy problem each one has. The other is a girl who is really good friends with the daughter of the ward mission leader. She actually lives there right now, which makes the fellowship thing pretty easy for us. Sorry if I said all of this last week, but I really can't remember that far back. I think I did tell you about our fun adventure last week trying to pick all the kids up for church. I am very very happy to say that we did not have to this week because they all came on their own. It was really funny too because I sat by them in church and kept having to tell them to be quiet because they kept wanting to talk about their baptism on the 30th. To be honest, it was kind of hard to tell them to be quiet when that was what they were talking about.

I did have a scary moment though with them. One of the kids that comes with them is only six. After sacrament he decided that he was a little too tired to go to church anymore so he started to leave. Since the others wanted to stay, nobody was going to go with him so he just started to go on his own. I ended up chasing him down the street and then about had a heart attack when he ran out in the road. Luckily there were no cars right then. I really don't know what I would have done if there would have been a car there. After that I just let him go. I figured that would be safer than me chasing him into the street. He actually ended up coming back and just sitting in the front waiting for the rest to finish. That's about all when it comes to the investigators right now.

I don't know if i told you this yet. When Elder Erickson was here he really worked and got an inactive RM to return to church. The bad thing is she has not been back ever since he left. I just heard that she has been baptized into the catholic church. That was a little shocking. To make it even more shocking, she just said that she wants her son that just turned eight to be baptized as a Latter Day Saint. I don't know what is going on, but I do love the kids so I hope that the one will be able to be baptized.

Let's see. I have three kind of funny stories. The first one actually happened last Monday at the mall. I was buying something at the book store when this older guy started talking to me. He was asking all kinds of questions about where I was going to find a wife at here it the Philippines. At the end of that fun conversation I tried to share a little bit about the church with him since he seemed pretty curious. He actually turned out to be a priest that shared more with me. He first asked me where I was going after I died, so I told him. Then all he did was ask over and over again if I was sure or not. He ended up giving me a little book about it called this could be your last five minutes. I told him that I would read it as long as he read the one that I gave him about the true plan of salvation. Who knows, maybe he will read it and we will have a very strong bishop in the church.

The next one is when we saw that one guy again that yelled at me about Jesus. This time was a little awkward since he decided that we needed to close our eyes and bow our heads so he could say a prayer for us all. I didn't know whether I should do that or just watch him. Either way, I could not help laughing this time. It was alright though, because he had his eyes closed so he did not see me.

The third one was the most embarrassing for me. We were teaching this really old lady about repentance, and I was the one teaching. I tried to tell her that in order to repent, we first need to actually stop doing the sin. Instead, I told her that in order to repent we all need to first fart. I guess the words for those are pretty close to each other. The people with me really could not help but all laugh out loud. I was confused, to say the least. At least now I have the word for stop and fart down. I think this one was worse than the time I told the lady she was really good at having kids instead of raising kids. That one was also a little awkward. Just another of the unforgettable moments.

Well I love you all. Again, I am excited to call. Since nobody has told me anything since I talked to mom yesterday, I will be calling here on Monday morning. So it should be around 2 to 3 pm there on Sunday. If you want to make sure, you can look it up. It will be around six am here Monday morning. Again, I love you all. Keep up the work in the church and remember to pray and study the scriptures each day. It's hard for me sometimes to tell the investigators to do that when I remember all the times that I didn't do it. Thanks for the support and the church is true.

Elder Booth